Why sorry seems right

Before I argue with the reflex, I want to be fair to it, because it comes from a good place and the people who do it are mostly the kind ones.

It's politeness. Sorry is the oil of British life. It's what you say in doorways and queues and it costs nothing and it keeps things moving.

It's kindness. The waiter's had a hard shift. The colleague's busy. A sorry says you've noticed that they're a person with a day, and that's a decent thing to say.

It's cheap. One word. It can't do harm. If it's unnecessary, so what.

It avoids conflict. A sorry in a doorway ends the doorway. Without it there'd be a look, or a word, and you'd rather not.

It's humility. You don't think you're more important than the people you're asking things of, and the sorry says so. Arrogant people don't apologise. You'd rather err the other way.

It's how everyone talks. Listen to any office. Sorry is the first word of half the sentences.

It's a reflex, by now. The word is out before the thought that would have stopped it, and a word that's been said forty times a day for twenty years isn't a decision. It's the shape your mouth makes in a doorway.

And it's you. You've always been the one who says it. It's part of how people know you, and it's not the worst thing to be known for.

There are needs under all of this. To be polite. To be kind. To be liked. Not to be thought pushy. Not to cause trouble. Those are good needs and the method later in the book meets every one of them. What I'll show is that the reflex sorry meets them badly, that it costs more than a word, that it's read as something you don't intend, and that the kindness you mean arrives as something closer to a small confession, forty times a day, of a fault nobody thought you'd committed.